Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Creative writing

Whether you enjoy writing sci-fi, fantasy or fiction, join our Creative Writing forum to meet others who love to write.

Would it be ok if I put the first draft of the beginning of my novel on here for critiquing?

46 replies

lottielady · 03/03/2019 12:34

It’s far from great art - a light read. But I don’t know if it’s worth pursuing.

Would someone read it and tell me whether I can write please?

TIA

OP posts:
WakeUpFromYourDreamAndScream · 03/03/2019 15:06

I loved it! Was disappointed it ended and I can't read more! Loved your writing style, very easy to read and a good flow. I don't agree you over wrote sentences I thought it was just right. It's the sort of book I would read it was great!

WakeUpFromYourDreamAndScream · 03/03/2019 15:07

Don't change the swearing, that's how a real person would react if their husband left them for a man! They'd swear. A lot!

lottielady · 03/03/2019 15:12

You’ve all spurred me on! I’ve added to it today for the first time in weeks Smile

OP posts:
Mailista · 03/03/2019 15:15

You are very brave, putting this out for comment - but admirable. I think it has potential. As hippo says, you don't have to give everything away in the first paragraphs, given that you've got plenty of space to fill. I do a fair bit of writing, and always write too much in the first draft. I've had a fiddle with your first bit, to see how it could be a bit less obvious and wordy. I don't mean this at all critically - just as another pair of eyes. I enjoyed what I read and wanted to read more. As PP have said, though, I'd keep the swearing to a minimum. The baseball cap sentence loses its impact with the inclusion of 'fucking', weirdly...

‘Hello my love. Are you all right this morning?’
Pam's head might have been sympathetically tilted, but her eyes were even beadier than those of Jane's Boston Terrier, Dottie [*I mention Dottie here, to avoid the lengthy description later].
You know I'm devastated and betrayed, Jane thought. But you're the only person around here who sells newspapers, so I have to put up with this. [avoid lengthy description of Pam being a newsagen]
She adjusted her baseball cap by way of defiance. Of all the humiliations heaped on her by her ex-husband over the past six months, being forced to wear a baseball cap had to rank up there with the worst of them.
"Oh you know, Pam. Soldiering on."
Pam tilted her head even further. That surely had to hurt.
‘I don’t know how you do it. I think I’d have ended it all by now, if I were you.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, it’s the humiliation, isn’t it? Bad enough he gets caught drink-driving, but then when it all came out about that young man...well, that would have just about finished me off.’
‘It hasn’t been my best year, Pam. Anyway, I must...’
‘When I’m standing behind that counter looking at the newspapers and all I can see are pictures of your little face, all sad, and then him grinning his head off on holiday with that little...well, I could spit, Jane, I really could.’
‘Please don’t spit on my behalf, Pam.’
‘And you so dignified. You two had such a lovely life. We loved having you and Rob living among us. Our local celebrity, we used to say. We’d see you, going out for nice lunches, or being driven back from London in a beautiful car, and we’d say, there they go. Don’t they have a lovely life? It gave all of us a bit of a lift, seeing how the other half lived. Something to look up to.’ Pam looked suddenly bereft.
‘And now it’s all gone.’
‘Well, Pam, I’m very sorry to have disappointed you...’ Jane's sarcasm [no need to tell us that she's being sarcastic at quite such length, and 'dripping' with sarcasm is a cliche] was evidently wasted on Pam, who appeared to have disappeared into her own private reverie of loss ['lost' and 'loss' is a bad combination].
['Jane cleared her throat' is padding]
'Anyway. I must get this one home...’ Jane looked down at Dottie, who was sitting perfectly patiently at her feet, for what was probably the first time ever. Little traitor.
The threat of Jane's departure seemed to cause Pam to rally a little. ‘But you’re not bitter. Anyone can see that. I mean, you’ve obviously let yourself go a bit, but you’re not doing the red carpet thing any more, so nobody could blame you for that. It must have been exhausting, all that upkeep. And it was all for nothing anyway, seeing it was boys he liked all along...’
Okay. Too far. Jane felt her throat grow fat, an all too familiar sensation these days.
‘I really do need to be off...’ Dammit. Tears.
[if she's wearing sunglasses, she'd have to be crying an awful lot for this to be evident. She could hide brimming eyes behind big dark glasses. Presumably she needs to be wearing them as she's trying not not be recognised?]
‘Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you. Oh silly me! Here, have a tissue. Oh, what am I like, running off at the mouth like that. Here.’
Pam handed her a tissue [if Jane is, as she has just observed a few lines earlier, prone to tears at the moment, wouldn't she be carrying her own tissues/hanky?], and Jane removed her sunglasses in order to mop up her tears. As she did so, there was a familiar click and whirr, and she looked up just [avoid repeated 'just'] in time to see Pam giving a thumbs up in the direction of an old Subaru Forester that was parked in a side road facing them.
As she caught Jane’s eye, Pam at least had the decency to blush.
‘It’s for your own good. The world needs to see how devastated you are. That bastard will be back on telly in six months if you let this all blow over' ['let this all blow over' makes his return to TV sound like a positive thing. Presumably Pam means it to be a negative thing? In which case something along the lines of 'That bastard will worm his way back on telly if he's allowed to get away with it now', or some such']
There was so much Jane wanted to say, most of it in guttural Anglo Saxon. But the paparazzo was still there, and the more dramatic the scene, the more money he and, [comma after 'and'] in turn, Pam, would receive at her expense. So Jane simply tugged Dottie’s leash, shook her head briefly at Pam, and made for the relative safety of her own front door.

AllStar14 · 03/03/2019 15:23

I love it and want to read more. Definitely keep the swearing.

lottielady · 03/03/2019 15:23

Mailista that’s really useful, thank you so much for taking the time Flowers

OP posts:
Mailista · 03/03/2019 15:27

My pleasure. Took my mind off DC2, who is in a monster strop with me!! Grin

Cel982 · 03/03/2019 16:09

Try to avoid editing as you go, and push on to finish the first draft. First drafts don't have to be perfect, they just need to exist - if you try to get it all just right before you move on, it's very easy to lose momentum and just give up. The second draft is where you can really polish up the writing. Good luck, OP!

bodgersmash · 03/03/2019 17:26

I really love it! Also wanted to read more. I agree with PP who didn't think they'd like the story from the opening line - that's the only part where the speech didn't feel natural to me. But after that I really enjoyed it and I already like your protagonist.

Come back and tell us when it's published so we can find out what happens next. Smile

lottielady · 03/03/2019 20:40

Thank you all so much! I’m all keen to keep going now!

OP posts:
Hellomatey001 · 06/03/2019 15:39

Yep very enjoyable. Well done, the points I would have made have already been raised by others ie too much exposition but do keep the delicious humour. Think that makes the writing pop.

Lolololololol · 06/03/2019 16:41

I really enjoyed this. Forgot I was reading a thread on mumsnet and was genuinely gutted when I got to the bottom and realised there was no further chapters! 😁

lottielady · 06/03/2019 18:31

Thank you all! Hoping to get a bit more done tonight Smile

OP posts:
JBFletcherismyaunt · 06/03/2019 18:43

I enjoyed it too, Lottie. Keep going and good luck with it Smile

EllenRipley · 06/03/2019 18:55

It definitely flows! Great dialogue, humour, well established intimacy with main character. Just watch out for overuse of adjectives and over-explanatory sentences - less is more.

Keep going OP X

Morgan12 · 06/03/2019 19:32

I want more!

I'd like to know more about what Jane looks like though, even a hair colour. I hate when I have a picture of a character and then 5 chapters later learn they look completely different.

lottielady · 06/03/2019 20:16

That’s a good point, Morgan - I need to work out how to do it without writing the whole cheesy ‘Jane stared at herself in the mirror’ scene though.

OP posts:
JenMumma · 06/03/2019 21:06

Bloody hell you go girl ! Thoroughly enjoyed it and you MUST finish it ⭐️🏆👏

lottielady · 06/03/2019 22:04

You lot are so nice!

OP posts:
Unguent · 08/03/2019 04:00

You could have Jane register her looks in passing when looking at the unflattering newspaper photo?

I agree that in general this works very well, but Pam is too much of a caricature — shopowners in villages are going to try to keep all customers onside, and why on earth would she publicly give the thumbs-up to a paparazzo she’s tipped off, and piss off a high-status customer, when she could have been discreet about it and still benefited? If Jane is the wife of a c-lister, and the betrayal is six months old, he wouldn’t pay Pam, either, though — the photos wouldn’t be worth enough when he sold them.

Also, are we meant to imagine the pap getting a shot of Jane’s face when she’s inside the newsagents’ from inside his car across the street?

If you want Jane to be a likeable relatable character, I’d take out ‘cunt’ — it’s an aggressive, misogynist obscenity for many women readers.

TheWanderingMinstrel · 21/03/2019 19:33

It's amazing. I most definitely would read on. I'm also curious about the daughter at uni... is she as well-settled as she appears, or is she struggling too?

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread